A Point of View BY Paul Montesino

The Historic Migrants.
A Point of View © 1996
By Paul V. Montesino, PhD, MBA, CSP.

Every day, men, women, children, and entire families leave their country, crossing their borders, walking or on wheels, traveling to Mexico, hoping to enter the United States of America on foot to restart their broken lives.

On August 3, 1492, a small fleet composed entirely of men on three ships called Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria sailed from the port of Palos on the Spanish Tinto River, sailed southward to the Canary Islands, off to the Northwest of Africa and then spent a month at Sebastian de la Gomera, one of the Canaries, eventually sailing out on September 6 on a trip that ended October 10 when they landed at an island in what is today the Caribbean and the natives called Guanahani. 

Christopher Columbus’ preparations for this trip didn’t include applying for a visa from the natives of Guanahani. And it certainly didn’t include temporary visas for the crew members of his ships who were previously jailbirds. Europeans brought with them deadly viruses and bacteria, such as smallpox, measles, typhus, and cholera, for which Native Americans had no immunity (Denevan, 1976). Columbus first encountered tobacco leaves in 1492 when they were given to him as a gift by the American Indians.  Then, the tobacco plant and smoking were introduced to Europeans, and they never stopped coughing. That’s called “getting even.” 

This year, as we take a day off from work or school to remember if not honor, Columbus’ arrival to the Americas, there are thousands, millions, who have traveled recently all over the American continents, both North and South, trying to discover their futures at a dangerous risk of their presents.

Challenging Columbus’s reputation, as many do, is not only a present effort by minorities of every shape or cause. It happened before. There is a massive statue in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, which has a plural version of my last name, Montesino. His name was Fra Antonio de Montesino”s”, a Spanish Dominican friar and missionary who was one of the first Europeans to publicly condemn the mistreatment of peoples who lived in these continents for ages. 

He is best remembered for a sermon delivered on December 4, 1511, in which he made a blistering attack on the colonists who had enslaved the people of the Caribbean. I don’t claim descendancy from him, although it would be an honor. And I am not sure either if Christopher Columbus deserves a holiday instead, but I am convinced Fra Antonio deserves one as well. I wonder if those who throw stones on the roads traversed by today’s migrants deserve to take a day off to consider their actions.

But I am sure you and I deserve it. Have a happy Columbus… er, Fra Montesinos day.

And that’s my Point of View today. So long.